Linda McMahon, the co-founder of World Wrestling Entertainment and defendant in the “Ring Boys” civil suit filed in October, served in President-elect Donald Trump‘s first administration. Now, he has selected her to serve as his education secretary.
Linda McMahon was just 17 when she married Vince McMahon in 1966. He was determined to take over his father’s company, Capitol Wrestling Corporation, one day to become a wrestling promoter. The couple was ambitious, and they bought the company in 1982, with Linda McMahon serving as CEO.
They turned the sport into a centerpiece of American culture, creating the term “Wrestlemania,” luring millions of people from across the world to arenas, televisions, and radios to enjoy dramatic scripted fighting. As CEO, Linda McMahon made business deals, released WWE merchandise, signed wrestler contracts, and wrote for WWE publications. She also made a few on-screen appearances from inside the ring with her husband, from whom she announced a legal separation in November 2024.
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The WWE made the McMahons millionaires, putting them in league with politicians and celebrities. Trump once appeared on Wrestlemania in 2007 during his time as a lead on the TV show The Apprentice. The scripted interaction led to Trump shaving off Vince McMahon’s hair on live television.
Linda McMahon left her CEO position at WWE in 2009 and served on the Connecticut State Board of Education for a year, telling lawmakers that her initial goal to become a teacher was put aside by her marriage but that education was still a dedication of hers. On a questionnaire for the job, she incorrectly stated she had a bachelor’s degree in education, according to the Washington Post. She has a degree in French and a teaching certificate from East Carolina University.
She was also a part of the Sacred Heart University board of trustees in Connecticut, although that did not do much to elevate her status in education circles.
After serving on Connecticut’s board of education, Linda McMahon decided to run for a U.S. Senate seat in Connecticut. She lost to Richard Blumenthal in 2010 and again to Chris Murphy in 2012. After the losses, the McMahons chose to support candidates financially instead. She gave tens of millions of dollars to various politicians and provided Trump’s candidacy with $6 million following his Republican nomination in 2016.
After Trump won the presidency in 2016, he appointed Linda McMahon to lead the Small Business Administration, which provides loans and disaster relief to entrepreneurs and companies while monitoring how government officials follow contract laws.
Linda McMahon took the job, and her former competitors for the Senate praised her tenacity. Blumenthal called her “a person of serious accomplishment and ability,” and Murphy said she was a “talented and experienced businessperson.”
In January, former WWE employee Janel Grant filed a lawsuit against Vince McMahon, the WWE, and the head of talent relations, John Laurinaitis, alleging years of sexual assaults, abuse, and sex trafficking. Linda McMahon is not directly implicated in Grant’s case, as the alleged abuse began in 2019, 10 years after she left her CEO position at WWE.
However, in October, five former Ring Boys filed another lawsuit alleging they were sexually abused by ring crew boss Mel Phillips on the company’s watch throughout the 1980s. The suit listed both Vince and Linda McMahon, as well as TKO Group Holdings, WWE’s parent company, as defendants in the case. The lawsuit states, “Defendants knowingly allowed Phillips to exploit his position at the WWE to groom and abuse Ring Boys, even in plain sight of wrestlers and executives in the locker room area.”
There were other instances of alleged abuse that never reached a formal court appointment, though. Securities and Exchange Commission filings by TKO Group Holdings show that Vince McMahon paid $14.6 million to quiet allegations of misconduct — money that was promised to women who accused him of sexual misconduct between 2006 and 2022, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Encouraged by Grant, many other people have come forward to share their claims with Ann Callis, Grant’s lawyer. Callis started vetting the new victims in November, and the case will likely head back to court.
The Ring Boys case is awaiting a court date as well.
Trump has shown affinity to both the McMahons. Shortly before Grant filed her lawsuit in January, Trump described Vince McMahon as “a fantastic guy, and one of the best ever” in an interview.
After Linda McMahon left Trump’s administration in 2019, he said, “She has been a superstar.”
“The fact is I’ve known her for a long time. I knew she was good, but I didn’t know she was that good,” Trump said.
Linda McMahon chaired America First Action, a super PAC for Trump, when he sought reelection in 2020. Following his loss to President Joe Biden, she set her sights on starting the America First Policy Institute, which had the goal of getting Trump back into the White House.
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Linda McMahon served as the co-chairwoman of his transition team alongside the chief executive of financial services company Cantor Fitzgerald, Howard Lutnick, who was just chosen as Trump’s commerce secretary.
Linda McMahon will be in charge of overseeing the Department of Education, a sector of the government that Trump has promised to abolish in favor of returning power to the states, although he has not gone into detail about his plan.
